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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968441">Yellowfang’s Decisions</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Clem/pseuds/Queen_Clem'>Queen_Clem</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Warriors - Erin Hunter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Read other fic first or you will not understand, not canon, sad lil baby Yellowfang tho</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:20:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27968441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_Clem/pseuds/Queen_Clem</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Yellowfang’s addition to my Miniseries surroundings “A Small Flame”. I don’t suggest reading if you have not read that fanfiction, as literally nothing here will make sense.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brokentail &amp; Yellowfang (Warriors), Firestar &amp; Yellowfang (Warriors)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Yellowfang’s Decisions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yellowfang felt a hollow feeling rip a jagged wound deep in her belly as Firepool padded from camp at Tigerclaws side.</p><p>The little molly looked them over one last time and, to Yellowfang’s sorrow, she was hard-pressed to say she couldn’t recognize the cat before her.</p><p>She knew both sides of Firepool, even if the tiny cat thought she hid her heart well enough, and the cat staring at her was the one she’d met long ago in the forest. </p><p>The little runt of an apprentice who had no mercy and shed blood just to feel it on her claws. A cruel stranger.</p><p>Firepool presented herself as a snippy, helpless, cat who blustered to make up for what she lacked. Her kit-like face often saved her from trouble and she was known for the odd prank or two. </p><p>To the clan, she needed protection. To the clan, she did not possess the traits she blustered to hide.</p><p>But Yellowfang knew better.</p><p>Her leg throbbed as she stood, padding over to Brackenpaw. The ginger apprentice stared at the spot his mentor had disappeared from, his gaze blank with helpless shock.</p><p>“It’ll be okay.” The words she spoke were flat even to her own ears. Firmly, she pushed a shoulder under his and lead him to the medicine den.</p><p>She left him there by himself, to grieve. Yellowfang knew better than most cats that sometimes, you needed to be alone to process shock.</p><p>Her leg ache grew worse and worse as she dragged Brokentail to her den. Her son mewled like a sick kit, his sides working hard as blood dripped from countless wounds on his ragged tabby pelt. The same pattern and shade as his fathers.</p><p>Looking between him and her leg, she let out a small chuff of bitter amusement.</p><p>Here lay her sin of a son, who had brought so much misery, who was regarded as a strong and powerful tom who could drive out an entire clan of cats with a single order and lose no sleep for it.</p><p>And he was crying like a kit.</p><p>Outside, somewhere in the forest, was Firepool. A cat who, in her deepest dreams, she thought of as her own.</p><p>With a kit-like face, small stature, and the scars of many lost fights, she looked harmless and weak.</p><p>Yellowfang’s leg throbbed harder.</p><p>Echos of memories flashed in her mind, of a gruesome leader standing over a pile of bloody kits with his own heart exposed to her. Nothing more than a bullied cat inflicting his hurt on others. </p><p>A troublesome kit with the body of a powerful grown cat.</p><p>And of a tiny, soft, she-cat with reinforced fangs flashing out in a furious hiss. Narrowed green eyes that shined with bitter hate and true, real, cruelty. Sharp, cutting, words spat in undeniable orders to cats who listened out of respect rather than fear. </p><p>A brutal leader trapped in the helpless body of a kit.</p><p>Her two kits, not by bond of kithood for one or blood for another, yet they ran like opposites of the same path.</p><p>Yellowfang stared down at her son as he grew still and his rapid breaths faded to nothing. Starclan had claimed another one of his lives. He had only one left now.</p><p>Her thoughts drifted as she waited for him to awaken. Could she have done anything for Firepool? Was there ever anything anyone could have done for her?</p><p>Many moons ago, she’d learned that Firepool had been forced into the role of a healer and her heart had ached for her.</p><p>Yellowfang had not been destined for the path of a warrior, though she tried to follow it, but it was different for her.</p><p>Though she followed it and tried to cling to it with all her heart, she had been allowed to decide to give up and follow Starclan.</p><p>She’d never had the decision made for her.</p><p>Or, she supposed, she’d had the illusion of a decision. Better than most, she knew that Starclan patted their living kin on the head like little kits just learning to toddle past their nest.</p><p>She may have been in the middle of her life when she finally followed their plan, but they allowed her to figure it out as a mother allows her kit to think weaning was up to them.</p><p>Never had the choice actually been hers, but she could pretend it was. She could pretend that she had not had to abandon her son and mate all for dead cats who never bothered to make her life any easier.</p><p>Firepool had never had that opportunity.</p><p>Yellowfang herself remembered the helpless rage she’d felt when she realized her position was being forced from her paws all because of a power she didn’t want nor ask for.</p><p>She couldn’t imagine what it would be like, to be young and full of dreams of ambition, only to be told that you could never follow them or ever <em>try</em> to.</p><p>All because of something out of your control. Suddenly, the memories of her first meeting with Firepool changed.</p><p>Her eyes, narrowed and shining with bitterness widened into deep pools of disappointment, and her shoulders, trembling with tense rage, softened into a gentler tremble. One that spoke of sorrow and grief rather than a readiness to fight. </p><p>For a moment, just a moment, the rage filled apprentice became a devastated kit. Yellowfangs heart clenched tight in her chest once more. Hurt kits were so dangerous.</p><p>They grew up to hurt those around them.</p><p>Yellowfang understood but at the same time, she couldn’t excuse what Firepool had done. She had hated her position as a medicine cat for a long time and, to this day, she was still resentful.</p><p>But she stayed. Because the clan was important and if serving them meant leaving behind your own desires, then that is what must be done.</p><p>Firepool, she felt, could not have learned that. She was selfish and would take what she wanted, even if it was not in the clans best interest.</p><p>But, she considered as Brokentail began to stirr, maybe that was not her fault completely.</p><p>Perhaps being stripped of her choices led the molly down a path where she took what she pleased from others with no regard to its effects. After all, that was what was done to her.</p><p>“Ugh, it hurts!” Brokentails ragged voice drew her from her thoughts. She stared down at him coldly, wondering what in his life had lead him to this moment.</p><p>Lizardstripe had been a horrid mother to him and her kits bullies but he had a the chance to avoid becoming this, hadn’t he?</p><p>They all had decisions, few as they may be.</p><p>He made the decision to raise his claws to those kits, he made the decision to send them to battle, he made the decision to banish elders, he made the decision to attack Thunderclan.</p><p>Everyday he had been presented with a decision and he had chosen the path that hurt everyone around him.</p><p>Yellowfang looked towards the yew bush growing through the camp wall beside her den, gleaming with red berries.</p><p>A certainty settled like a stone in her belly. He had been presented with these decisions his entire life, and he had never once chosen good.</p><p>Why would he now? Nothing had changed. Even blinded, even showed mercy by those he attacked, he still chose to hurt them.</p><p>A memory fluttered in her mind. A tiny brown tabby with his eyes still clenched shut and his ears folded back wiggled at her paws.</p><p>Then he turned up to her and his face was twisted with so much hate. Hate that even seasoned elders were unable to produce, hate that spoke of a supernatural touch.</p><p>He was a punishment, her punishment to bear but, she couldn’t help but think that maybe if she had claimed him then the punishment would not have consumed him so.</p><p>Maybe if she had been there, then he would have chosen the good decisions. Maybe he would’ve even been a fine leader.</p><p>But it was too late now.</p><p>He would never be the kit of her dreams. He was a conniving killer and a danger to her clan. </p><p>So, like all those seasons ago, it came down to what she wished to do and what was best for her clan.</p><p>Brokentail squirmed at her paws once more, drawing her from her thoughts. She stared down at him once more, her heart twisting.</p><p>“Lie still, Brokentail. You’ve lost a life,” Yellowfang murmured softly. “You’re going to be fine.” </p><p>“What do you mean?” snarled Brokentail, his voice weak from loss of blood. “If I’ve got another life left, why do my wounds still hurt?”</p><p>“StarClan have healed the wound that killed you,” Yellowfang explained, still in stuck in memories long gone. “The others need the skill of a medicine cat.”</p><p>“Then what are you waiting for, you scrawny old pest?” hissed Brokentail. “Get on with it. Give me something for this pain.”</p><p>“All right, I will.” Yellowfang felt that same certainty settle in her belly as she padded to grab the berries poking for the yew bush. </p><p>He would never change. He would always hurt those around him and, perhaps, she was setting him free from his curse with this. At the very least, she was setting her clan free if it.</p><p>“Here. Eat these berries, and the pain will go away for good.” Carefully, deliberately, she rolled three bright red berries in front of the wounded Brokentail, guiding his paw until he could touch them. </p><p>Coldly, Yellowfang stood and watched him chew the berries with a face like stone. “You and my Clan cast me out and I came here.”</p><p>She hissed into his ear. “I was a prisoner, just like you. But ThunderClan treated me well, and at last they trusted me enough to be their medicine cat. You could have earned their trust, too. But now—will any cat trust you ever again?”</p><p>Brokentail let out a contemptuous hiss. “Do you think I care?”</p><p>Yellowfang crouched even closer to him, feeling a mournful feeling bloom in her chest. “I know you care for nothing, Brokentail. Not your Clan, nor your honor, nor your own kin.”</p><p>“I have no kin.” Brokentail spat out the words.</p><p>“Wrong. Your kin has been closer to you than you ever dreamed. I’m your mother, Brokentail.”</p><p>The blind warrior made a curious rasping noise in his throat, like a terrible attempt at laughter. “Spiders have spun webs in your brain, old one. Medicine cats never have kits.”</p><p>“That’s why I had to give you up,” Yellowfang told him, seasons of bitterness dripping from each word. So many decisions, so many mistakes but it was all over now, “But I never stopped caring...never. When you were a young warrior, I was so proud of you.” </p><p>She heard as her own voice dropped to a low snarl. “And then you murdered Raggedstar. Your own father. You killed kits of our Clan, and made me take the blame. You would have destroyed our Clan completely. So now it is time to put an end to all this treachery.”</p><p>“An end? What do you mean, you old...” Brokentail tried to rise to his paws, but his legs gave way and he fell heavily onto his side. </p><p>His voice rose to a thin screech that chilled Yellowfang to the bone. “What have you done? I can’t...can’t feel my paws. Can’t breathe...”</p><p>“I fed you deathberries.” Yellowfang’s eyes narrowed to mere slits as she gazed at him. “I know this is your last life, Brokentail. Medicine cats always know. Now no cat will ever be hurt again because of you.”</p><p>Brokentail’s jaws parted in a cry of shock and fear. Yellowfang thought she could hear regret there, too, but the blind warrior was unable to put words to it. His limbs thrashed and his paws scrabbled in the dust; his chest heaved as he fought for air.</p><p>She watched until his last struggles faded into nothing and his heaving chest stilled for the final time.</p><p>It was over.</p><p>He was gone. The terrible leader, the kit-killer of Shadowclan, the unruly apprentice, the abandoned kit.</p><p>It had all lead to this moment, to her decision to end it all as she should’ve done at it’s start.</p><p>At least then, he would’ve been mourned properly. She and Raggedstar would’ve grieved all he could’ve been instead of her alone grieving all that he had become. No one but her would. She dare say cats would even celebrate.</p><p>Firepools face flashed in her mind as she gently closed Brokentails eyes. She drew in a sharp breath and prayed that Starclan had mercy on the molly. </p><p>That they freed her from her own mind. That they gave her the room to change that Brokentail had never had. Anything to prevent her from becoming the monster Yellowfang had met in the forest all those moons ago.</p><p>The decisions were laid out, she could only hope that Firepool chose right.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hope it was worth the late update to a small flame! My bad btw lol, finals week.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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